YU Yureka Plus Review: The Perfect Phablet

YU made an impact inside Indian smartphone world last year by not only scrubbing OnePlus the wrong way with its exclusive deal with Cyanogen Inc. but in addition with an excellent product in the Yureka.The Yureka has become the perfect phablet for less than Rs.10,000. It actually managed to beat the Xiaomi Redmi Note to this crown.

Sadly, in this age of iterative upgrades, 7 months later the Yureka had lost its advantage. The truth is, for a last few weeks the Micromax-owned firm had discontinued selling the device. Well, YU had many reasons for the same as it was going to kick off an improved edition of the phone named as Yu Yureka Plus.

Undoubtedly, YU is looking to regain lost ground which has been grabbed by devices such as the new Lenovo K3 Note. The Yureka Plus is fairly evidently training its corsairs for the K3 Note. Prior to when the K3 Note came to the market, no smartphone in India which was priced at lower than 10K had a full HD display. The K3 Note changed this.

Therefore, YU has responded in kind. The Yureka Plus also offers a full HD display. Is this enough? Let’s find out in our Yu Yureka Plus Review.

Design and Quality

The design of the Yureka Plus somewhat looks similar to the Yureka. It’s a carbon copy on the surface aside from the fact that now there’s a whitened model, that feels very nice. We, however, Reviewed the main black model, which usually looks similar to the older phone.

Basically, I’m referring to a polycarbonate body, which includes more rounded edges along with a detachable curved back having a rubberised matte texture. It feels great in the hands and does not slip offering a nice grip in the palm.

Undoubtedly, since it has a massive 5.5-inch display, 1 handed usage is not exactly a simple option for many. Luckily, the device has got its volume and power buttons on the right which can provide good travel and tactile feedback. The phone is also quite slim at 8.8mm and 155 grams.

The white edition of the phone undoubtedly seems good, however, we bet it’ll also get dirty rather swiftly in a dusty area such as Delhi. We experienced similar problems while using the white version of the OnePlus One.

Display

The display is definitely the spotlight of the YU Yureka Plus. It’s the lone reason behind the ‘Plus’ nomenclature. The phone receives a massive resolution push. From the 720p screen of the Yureka, the Yureka Plus features a 5.5-inch full HD 1080p IPS display, that is additionally shielded using a layer of Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3.

It is an excellent display, and that is capable of reproducing accurate colours, sharp contrast and even delivers superb viewing angles along with nominal colour distortion at intense angles.

The black levels of the display are also pretty fine, particularly for something which prices lower than Rs.10,000. Finally, we furthermore observed Yureka Plus is quite usable under sunlight.

Corning Gorilla Glass also assures the device can easily avoid the unusual scratch as you use the phone, even though it certainly doesn’t make the phone infallible.

The main takeaway out at this point is the fact that Yu Yureka Plus now has a display which can tackle some of the best smartphones available in the market such as the powerful OnePlus One. This also indicates this is a fabulous phone for reading, viewing movies or playing games.

Camera

The camera sensor has been enhanced from the earlier Sony IMX135 CMOS sensor to a more advanced IMX214 sensor.

which could shoot colours much better and it also work effectively in low light circumstances. The megapixels remain exactly the same at 13MP, on the other hand, images are crisper and contrast is much better. The Video recording is still at 1080p and because of far better low light performance and colour vividness, Now the video quality is way better.

Performance and Gaming

YU Yureka Plus keeps exactly the same processing package – The Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 octa-core processor, 2GB RAM and 16GB of internal storage. You will find about 12.32 GB of user available storage space, however, if that is an issue, the device also offers a microSD card slot, that can be helpful to increase the memory further.

You’d probably assume that similar processing package would deliver the exact same type of performance. But, there’s a big switch. The identical hardware now needs to drive a larger resolution display; therefore the GPU is driving much more pixels.

This certainly results in a rather reduced user experience with regards to pure speed. The animations switch at a marginally sluggish rate and even apps also require somewhat longer to change as compared with the original Yureka. Having said that, this isn’t a debilitating difference and the majority of people will be unable to see the difference except if the two phones are side-by-side.

The sole key change is at the lock screen. Whenever the lock screen was loaded with plenty of notifications, we discovered it started out slowly.

Multi-tasking stays decent and we could actually have close to 10-15 apps open simultaneously without having performance issues.

Video gaming continues to be excellent, although now FPS drops tend to be more noticeable in game titles such as Dead Trigger 2. However, games look good as a result of the higher resolution screen. Essentially, the phone furthermore does not get hot mainly while playing games for instance Asphalt 8.

Call quality in the Yureka Plus was fairly hassling free. Indeed, we did experience the unusual dropped call, nevertheless which is perhaps more to do with the overloaded network compared to anything else. Within the Airtel 4G network in Delhi NCR, we additionally managed to enjoy 4G speeds in select locations. Just like its forerunner, the Yureka Plus is a dual-SIM smartphone.

Software and Battery

YU mobile phones run using a personalized edition of Android known as CyanogenMod, that is developed by Cyanogen Inc. The Yureka Plus comes with CyanogenMod 12 based on Android 5.1 Lollipop running out of the box.

The software experience is quite similar to stock Android, just like Google’s Nexus smartphones, although there are several very useful tweaks.

Android nonetheless is an extremely customisable os, and CyanogenMod takes customisation to a different level. For instance, every single part of the core user interface can be styled. It is possible to select various elements from various themes and join them altogether to create your own customized experience. There are actually various themes you could choose.

It comes with a built-in gallery app, which collates data from several sources. CyanogenMod also provides an user-friendly camera app, allowing you to switch between many different modes just by sliding up and down and even it comes with a decent number of manual settings.

Last but not least, another highlight is the Audio FX equaliser, which usually not just brings support for lossless .FLAC files, but in addition lets you manually modify the audio settings for the device

The Yu Yureak Plus ships with 2,500mAh battery and it generally provides very much the same performance compared to the older Yureka. What this means is the phone will in most cases easily last a complete day with moderate to heavy usage. With an average, the phone lasted us near 14-16 hrs, that too on the 4G network and with a higher resolution display. It was outstanding.

Throughout daily use, we usually make around 2 hrs of calls, browse the internet for approximately 30-40 mins and take about 15-20 pictures on a regular basis. We in addition have 2 social network and e-mail accounts always pings together with WhatsApp. Whilst commuting we also use Google Music for streaming music along with YouTube for videos. We furthermore enjoyed games such as Asphalt 8 and Dead Trigger 2 for an hour at least every day when examining the phone.

The battery life should be suitable for the majority of people, however in the situation you are looking for heavier usage Xiaomi’s Redmi Note will give you much better battery life.

Conclusion

Even though the price variation is negligible and so are the enhancements, the Yureka Plus provides a Full HD screen along with a much better camera. All of these are worth the Rs. 1,000 price increase. There is absolutely no to little loss in overall performance, actually, this is a little bit better. In case Yureka had been your choice before, the Yureka Plus ought to be your choice now. There are however a few other alternatives within this price tag, the ZenPhone 2 along with the new Moto G (3rd Gen) is almost here.

8.0

OVERALL SCORE

FEATURES: 9

Design & Quality: 7

DISPLAY & MULTIMEDIA: 9

BATTERY LIFE: 7

CAMERA: 8

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There're plenty of smartphones in this price range, But the Yureka Plus is the beast among all these phones. It comes with some key improvements such as improved camera and display.

Meet Linas Kiguolis, the founder and chief editor of TecoReviews. His interests in latest modern technologies, cyber security, social media led him to study Applied Computer Sciences and Business Informatics. Merging the acquired theoretical knowledge and his passion for IT gadgets shaped TecoReviews. As for the free time, Linas finds peace of mind in immersing himself in robotics and Capoeira sport.